Richard Graff is in the business of selling newspapers and magazines adjacent to the Randolph Street entrance to the City of Chicago Cultural Center, formerly the flagship building of the Chicago Public Library. It is a prized location; a newsstand has operated on approximately the same site for seventy years. After Mr. Graff bought the stand in 1984 for $53,000, he applied several times for a permit. The city denied his application in each instance because, it said, the municipal policy toward newsstands was under review and the city was issuing no new permits, even to those with existing newsstands. Apparently Chicago allowed permitless stands to operate during this period. In 1987 Mr. Graff moved his stand from the east to the west side of the steps of the Randolph Street entrance to make way for construction crews. He did so at the behest of the city, though the parties dispute whether Mr. Graff was forced to move or he agreed to do so. Subsequently, the city sent Mr. Graff a series of notices ordering him to remove the structure entirely. Each of these notices was rescinded after consultations between Mr. Graff's lawyers and municipal officials. When Mr. Graff applied once again for a permit, he was told that the city was still not issuing them, though Mr, Graff claimed to have evidence to the contrary. Concerned that he would be driven *1059out of business, Mr. Graff filed this suit in district court alleging that Chicago’s ordinance regulating newsstand operators violated the Commerce Clause and the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The plaintiff also sought injunctive relief to stop the city from enforcing its ordinance against him.
On June 28, 1991, some four months after Mr. Graff lodged his complaint, the City Council approved a new ordinance regulating newsstands. Chicago, Ill.Mun. Code §§ 10-28-130-10-28-192 (1991).1 The new ordinance is more specific about what factors city officials should consider in issuing permits; it also eliminates a provision in the old law that favored newsstands selling publications printed in Chicago. Mr. Graff then amended his action to attack the constitutionality of the new city ordinance under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and he again requested injunctive relief. Sometime later Mr. Graff also filed a new permit application, which the Commission on Chicago Landmarks denied. In the court below, the city defended its ordinance as a content-neutral time, place and manner regulation. The district court, finding that Mr. Graff had mounted only a facial challenge to the newsstand law, upheld the constitutionality of the ordinance, 800 F.Supp. 576. Thus the court dismissed two counts of the complaint attacking the new ordinance, denied injunctive relief as moot, and removed Mayor Richard M. Daley as a defendant.2 The district court did preserve one count of Mr. Graff’s complaint based on the city’s allegedly arbitrary and irrational treatment of his various applications for a permit under the old ordinance. The city does not contest the district court’s decision to retain this one count.
As to the other two counts which the district court dismissed, we reverse. Because it gives too much discretion to an unelected decisionmaker, the Chicago ordinance violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
I.
As a preliminary matter, defendant argues that this Court lacks jurisdiction to hear plaintiff's appeal because the judgment below is not final. Plaintiff asserts that we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 1292(a)(1) to hear appeals from an interlocutory order denying injunctive relief. The district court dismissed with prejudice counts one and two of Mr. Graff's complaint. As a result, Judge Lindberg concluded that plaintiff could not prevail on the merits of his claim and so denied his motion for what the judge called a temporary restraining order. Defendant is correct that denial of a temporary restraining order is not appealable. Geneva Assurance Syndicate Inc. v. Medical Emergency Services Ass'n, 964 F.2d 599, 600 (7th Cir.1992) (per curiam). However, the character of the injunctive relief sought, not what the judge happens to call it, will determine whether it may be appealed. Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 85-88, 94 S.Ct. 937, 950-952, 39 L.Ed.2d 166 (1974). Temporary restraining orders are for brief periods (ten days plus one ten-day extension for good cause under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(b)), ex parte, and informal. Geneva Assurance Syndicate, 964 F.2d at 600. In this case, Mr. Graff stated in his amended complaint that he sought a "preliminary and permanent injunction" against the city, not a temporary restraining order. The party's characterization of the relief sought is no more controlling than the judge's. In this case, however, a ten- or twenty-day injunction would have done little for Mr. Graff. Also, his prayer for relief was lodged in a formal complaint involving the opposing party. In no sense was Mr. Graff asking for a brief, ex parte, informal temporary restraining order; he was asking for a preliminary injunction, the denial of which is appealable to this Court.
The city also quotes Carson v. American Brands, Inc., 450 U.S. 79, 101 S.Ct. 993, 67 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981), for the proposi*1060tion that a party may not appeal an interlocutory order dismissing some, but not all, counts of a complaint while denying a motion for a preliminary injunction as moot. The defendant tries to fit this case under the rubric of interlocutory orders that have the practical effect of denying injunctive relief, as opposed to interlocutory orders that deny injunctive relief directly. According to defendant, the former may not be appealed unless the party can show (1) serious, perhaps irreparable consequences and (2) the order can be "effectually challenged" only by immediate appeal. Carson, 450 U.S. at 84, 101 S.Ct. at 996. Defendant's argument falters because this is not a practical effect case; the judge explicitly denied plaintiff's prayer for injunctive relief. Moreover, the cases cited by Justice Brennan in Carson to illustrate the irreparable injury requirement concerned plaintiffs who had not filed motions seeking a preliminary injunction. 450 U.S. at 84-86, 101 S.Ct. at 996-997. As we concluded above, Mr. Graff did petition the district court for a preliminary injunction.
Our decision in Holmes v. Fisher, 854 F.2d 229, 231 (7th Cir.1988), explicitly rejected the approach taken by some courts of requiring irreparable injury where there is no question that the plaintiff was denied injunctive relief: “Section 1292(a)(1) is decently plain: all interlocutory orders denying injunctions are appealable.” Id. Yet even if this were a practical effect case, Mr. Graff would have little difficulty meeting the irreparable injury requirement. By denying his claim for injunctive relief and by dismissing his constitutional challenge to the new ordinance, the lower court left the city free to force Mr. Graff out of the news-selling business, and the city did precisely that a short two months after the district court rendered its judgment. It is hard to imagine a more compelling case of irreparable injury.
II.
This suit could involve as many as three separate claims: an as-applied challenge under the old ordinance, an as-applied challenge under the new ordinance, and a constitutional challenge to the new ordinance on its face. The facts surrounding Mr. Graff’s treatment by defendant under the old ordinance are ultimately unnecessary to this discussion because the district court did not resolve those issues. Therefore, the as-applied attack on the previous ordinance is not properly before us. Similarly, we need not consider Mr. Graff’s as-applied challenge to the new ordinance—assuming he raised such a claim—because the ordinance itself violates the Constitution.3
Mr. Graff is well placed to bring a facial challenge to the Chicago ordinance. In the free speech context, a plaintiff is entitled to challenge the constitutionality of a statute for delegating overly broad licensing discretion to an administrator, even if his conduct could be prescribed by a properly drawn statute. Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 56, 85 S.Ct. 734, 737-738, 13 L.Ed.2d 649 (1965). One has standing to make such a challenge to the face of a law even if the person has not applied for *1061a permit or license. Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 97, 60 S.Ct. 736, 741-742, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940). Courts are willing to overlook the usual requirements of the case or controversy doctrine in the First Amendment arena because of the fear that people will censor themselves, and because it is difficult to detect, review and correct content-based discrimination without standards by which to measure the licensor's action. City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., 486 U.S. 750, 759, 108 S.Ct. 2138, 2145, 100 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988). "Self-censorship is immune to an `as applied' challenge, for it derives from the individual's own actions, not an abuse of government power." Id. at 757, 108 S.Ct. at 2144. Just as in Lakewood, the licensing scheme in the instant case has two features that permit a facial challenge. First, vendors must apply for licenses that are periodically renewed by the issuer. Second, the licensing system at issue here is "directed narrowly and specifically at expression or conduct commonly associated with expression: the circulation of newspapers." Id. at 760, 108 S.Ct. at 2145. The Chicago ordinance is directed specifically at newsstand operators: "It shall be unlawful for any person to erect, locate, construct or maintain any newspaper stand * * * without obtaining a permit * * *." Chicago, Ill.Mun.Code § 10-28-130 (1991).
The city implies, and Judge Manion’s dissent adopts the view, that Mr. Graff should not be permitted to bring a facial challenge because the Chicago ordinance does not regulate expressive conduct; in other words, the ordinance is outside the reach of the First Amendment (defendant’s brief at 16-23). The dissent further contends that the ordinance does not vest unbridled discretion in a city official. Recall that under Lakewood, “a facial challenge lies whenever a licensing law gives a government official or agency substantial power to discriminate based on the content or viewpoint of speech by suppressing disfavored speech or disliked speakers.” Id. at 759, 108 S.Ct. at 2145. To a large extent, then, one’s ability to mount a facial challenge depends on the resolution of the substantive questions of whether speech is implicated and whether decisionmakers have excessive authority. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, with which the dissent obviously disagrees, we conclude that the newsstand business implicates the First Amendment, that the ordinance vests excessive discretion in unelected administrators, and that a facial challenge to the city’s licensing scheme is appropriate.
Mr. Graff disseminates newspapers and magazines; this activity goes to the heart of the First Amendment because the publications he sells give citizens vital information about public affairs. It is irrelevant that the newspaper vendors who are affected by the ordinance engage in this activity for profit. Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 150, 80 S.Ct. 215, 217, 4 L.Ed.2d 205 (1959); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 266, 84 S.Ct. 710, 718, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964). Nor is it relevant that these vendors do not have a hand in writing or publishing what they sell. It is doubtful, for example, that the Jehovah's Witnesses who distributed pamphlets and magazines in Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 58 S.Ct. 666, 82 L.Ed. 949 (1938), wrote the materials herself, yet this fact did not stop the Supreme Court from overturning Mrs. Lovell's conviction under a constitutionally flawed licensing scheme. And our decision in American Booksellers Ass'n, Inc. v. Hudnut, 771 F.2d 323 (1985), affirmed, 475 U.S. 1001, 106 S.Ct. 1172, 89 L.Ed.2d 291 (1986), striking down an Indianapolis ordinance that outlawed pornography, did not grant the plaintiffs any lesser measure of First Amendment protection because they were book vendors rather than book writers. In other words, the First Amendment does not discriminate among those who peddle their own ideas and those who peddle the ideas of others.4
*1062As part of its argument that newsstands are not protected by the First Amendment, the city maintains that the central issue of this case is not Mr. Graff's freedom of expression but the right, or lack of right, to erect structures on public property. As defendant put it, "Graff can stand on the public way anywhere in the City and offer newspapers for sale" (defendant's brief at 20). This misses the point. Taking away a speaker's microphone may muzzle his speech as effectively as putting tape across his mouth. See Saia v. New York, 334 U.S. 558, 68 S.Ct. 1148, 92 L.Ed. 1574 (1948) (overturning ordinance that prohibited use of loudspeaker in public places without permission of chief of police). For obvious reasons, Mr. Graff finds the physical structure of the newsstand instrumental to his business: disseminating information. The stand gives him greater visibility, a stable location, and the ability to sell a wide variety of publications. Of course he can sell papers without the stand, as defendant flippantly suggests, but he can't sell them as effectively — imagine Mr. Graff standing on the streetcorner trying to hang on to dozens of magazines while Chicago's wind whips the papers out of his grasp. In Lakewood the Supreme Court recognized the constitutional significance of such implements of commerce when it struck down an ordinance regulating the placement of newsracks on public property. Lakewood, 486 U.S. 750, 108 S.Ct. 2138. If newsracks receive First Amendment protection, so do newsstands.5
The dissent chastises this analogy between newsstands and newsracks and maintains that the erection of newsstands is conduct, pure and simple. Divorced from the activity of distributing literature, the building of a stand on the sidewalk is indeed non-expressive conduct. Yet one cannot separate the activity involving the structure from the structure itself. Placing newsracks on public property is no more expressive in nature than building a newsstand. If there were no newspapers in the racks, there would have been no First Amendment issue in Lakewood. The Supreme Court found it necessary to protect newsracks in Lakewood not because there was any inherent First Amendment value in the mundane activity of placing metal boxes on streetcorners, but because the boxes facilitated the distribution of First Amendment material. Similarly, there is nothing mystical about a newsstand. There would be no First Amendment question if the city sought to regulate the erection of structures so that vendors could sell soda from the sidewalk. See id. at 761, 108 S.Ct. at 2146. Newsstands, however, serve only one purpose: to distribute literature, and the Supreme Court’s analysis in Lakewood does not allow for disentangling the structure from the use made of the structure. The dissent finds newsstands different from newsracks because the latter are less permanent, smaller and “[w]hen they need fixing, they get repaired, not replaced” (at p. 1071). The significance of these distinctions is elusive. Most newsracks remain on the same corners for years and are permanent fixtures on the streetscape, just like newsstands. With all due respect, the First Amendment cannot turn on the trivial dis*1063tinction that rusted newsracks are replaced while weather-beaten newsstands are repaired with hammer and nails. The physical nature of the structure does not dictate the First Amendment protection it receives because the newsstand or newsrack is merely the conduit; and surely the recipients of First Amendment literature do not care whether their newsstand is repaired or replaced.
Judge Manion suggests that newsstands are more analogous to bookstores than to newsracks. Yet if the city had passed an ordinance directed specifically at the licensing of bookstores, is there any question that we would scrutinize the ordinance for its effect on free expression? In fact, the majority opinion in Lakewood specifically rejected the parallel drawn in Justice White's dissent — cited frequently by today's dissent — between newsracks and soda vendors, which attempted to separate the conduct of placing newsracks on public property from the expressive activity of distributing newspapers. Id. at 761, 108 S.Ct. at 2146. The real parallel, the Court opined, is between newsracks and leafleters, whose First Amendment rights are well established. Id. at 762, 108 S.Ct. at 2146 (citing Lovell, 303 U.S. at 447, 58 S.Ct. at 667). Newsstand operators are also businessmen. Yet they cannot be divorced from the substance of their business, which involves critical First Amendment activity, any more than booksellers or publishers distributing newspapers in newsracks. If anything, the analogy drawn in Lakewood between newsracks and pamphleteers is even stronger in this case where the vendors distribute publications by hand. It is true, as the dissent points out, that Lakewood rejected any distinction based on distribution by hand versus distribution by machine. We do not make any such distinction or grant one method of distribution any more First Amendment protection than the other. It is nevertheless true that the newsstand operator's means of distribution resembles the pamphleteer's method more than does the newsrack. In any event, both forms of distribution receive First Amendment protection. The newsstand, which falls somewhere between the two, must receive protection as well. The dissent says that we have vindicated Justice White's fear in his Lakewood dissent that newspaper publishers may seize public property for private use and ignore the governmental interests at stake. We have done no such thing. We hold only that a municipality must grant its citizens certain procedural safeguards where it seeks to license expressive activity, and we most emphatically reject the notion that private parties have any unassailable right to build structures on public property.
III.
The court below mistakenly held that the city’s ordinance is not a prior restraint. Chicago's ordinance forces news vendors to apply for a permit from local officials before they can sell papers from their newsstands. This licensing scheme creates a classic prior restraint by giving administrators the power to foreclose speech. Though not every prior restraint is invalid, the judiciary is vigilant in its oversight of prior restraints because of the fear that they deprive or delay access to information, and because restraints that lack procedural safeguards may lead to content-based discrimination. As the Supreme Court said in Vance v. Universal Amusement Co., Inc.:
Any system of prior restraint * * * “comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.” * * * The presumption against prior restraints is heavier—and the degree of protection broader—than that against limits on expression imposed by criminal penalties. Behind the distinction is a theory deeply etched in our law: a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse rights of speech after they break the law than to throttle them and all others beforehand. It is always difficult to know in advance what an individual will say, and the line between legitimate and illegitimate speech is often so finely drawn that the risks of freewheeling censorship are formidable.
445 U.S. 308, 316 n. 13, 100 S.Ct. 1156, 1161 n. 13, 63 L.Ed.2d 413 (1980) (citations omit*1064ted). The Supreme Court has held in a long line of cases that authority exercised to administer a licensing scheme must be bounded by clear and precise standards where officials have the power to foreclose speech in public places. Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 553, 95 S.Ct. 1239, 1243, 43 L.Ed.2d 448 (1975); Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 150-151, 89 S.Ct. 935, 938-939, 22 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969); Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U.S. 313, 322, 78 S.Ct. 277, 282, 2 L.Ed.2d 302 (1958); Kunz v. New York, 340 U.S. 290, 293-294, 71 S.Ct. 312, 314-315, 95 L.Ed. 280 (1951); Schneider v. New Jersey, 308 U.S. 147, 161-162, 60 S.Ct. 146, 160-161, 84 L.Ed. 155 (1939); Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496, 59 S.Ct. 954, 83 L.Ed. 1423 (1939). A prior restraint "avoids constitutional infirmity only if it takes place under procedural safeguards designed to obviate the dangers of a censorship system." Freedman, 380 U.S. at 58, 85 S.Ct. at 739. An ordinance must contain explicit limits on the decisionmaker's discretion. Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 769, 108 S.Ct. at 2150. In short, this Court is obligated to scrutinize closely the level of discretion granted to the Chicago official who licenses newsstand operators.
The Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 110 S.Ct. 596, 107 L.Ed.2d 603, adapted the procedural safeguards of Freedman, a motion picture censorship case, to a licensing scheme for sexually oriented businesses. FW/PBS instructs us how to evaluate a licensing scheme to ensure that it contains adequate procedural safeguards. A city may only license a business associated with First Amendment freedoms if, first, the licensor is obligated to grant or deny the permit within a specified and reasonable time during which the status quo is maintained and, second, if there is the possibility of prompt judicial review in the event the license is erroneously denied. Id. at 228, 110 S.Ct. at 606. A ministerial action denying a license is not presumptively invalid, unlike most prior restraints, and the city is not required to justify its decision in court on every occasion. Id. at 229, 110 S.Ct. at 606-607. However, the vendor denied a license must be able to seek prompt judicial review, and the absence of review is fatal. See Southeastern Promotions, 420 U.S. at 561-562, 95 S.Ct. at 1248; FW/PBS, 493 U.S. at 229, 110 S.Ct. at 606-607.6
The Chicago ordinance does not measure up under the dictates of FW/PBS and Southeastern Promotions. It does, however, contain some important safeguards. The ordinance guarantees prompt decisions on permit applications: between thirty-five and sixty-five days for initial permits and ten days for renewal permit applications. Chicago, Ill.Mun.Code § 10-28-160(e) (1991). The ordinance also gives the Commissioner of Public Works explicit instructions to grant or deny permits only according to six factors: whether the design comports with the “quality and character of the streetscape”; whether the vendor complies with the ordinance; whether the vendor has previously operated a stand at the location; whether there are other newsstands in the area; How many daily publications will be carried; and whether the size of the stand relates to the number *1065of days it will be operating. Chicago, III. Mun.Code § 10-28-160(a)(l)-(6) (1991).
The ordinance’s invitation to discriminate by type of publication is troubling. The Commissioner of Public Works is directed to consider “the number of daily publications proposed to be sold from the newspaper stand” as one of six factors in deciding whether to grant a permit. Id. While the city might legitimately favor daily publications, it offers no justification for this preference in the record. For all we know, the provision may be an attempt by officials to curry favor with the dailies, generally the most powerful and influential publications in a city.7 These rather vague six criteria are in some theoretical sense valid limitations on the exercise of the Commissioner’s discretion.8 However, the Chicago ordinance fails to provide prompt judicial review—or review of any kind for that matter—and so flunks the second requirement of FW/PBS, 493 U.S. at 228, 110 S.Ct. at 606. The ordinance vests nearly absolute authority in one individual, the Commissioner of Public Works, so long as he is circumspect enough to couch any permit denial in terms of the six criteria. Without the strong check of subsequent review, the ordinance contains merely paper standards; it puts no substantive limits on the decisionmaker’s authority. Though at first blush the statute offers elaborate procedural guidelines for the issuance and denial of permits, these are illusory. For example, section 10-28-160(a) outlines procedures for hearings and reports by which a City Council committee is to comment on a proposed newsstand license, and it guarantees the vendor the right to be heard in such proceedings. However, these procedures are entirely optional; under the ordinance the City Council could decide not to comment on newsstand applications at all. In fact, the new section 10-28-160 replaces a provision in the older ordinance requiring the full City Council to approve all permits. The new section 10-28-160 instructs the Commissioner of Planning to advise the Commissioner of Public Works, but there is nothing requiring the Public Works Commissioner to accept or even consider his colleague’s advice. The only time the Public Works Commissioner shares decision-making authority is when a newsstand vendor seeks a permit to erect a structure on a designated historical landmark. In such cases—including Mr. Graff’s application for a stand outside the City of Chicago Cultural Center—the Commission on Chicago Historical and Architectural Landmarks must approve. In all other cases, the Commissioner of Public Works is the sole, unfettered decisionmaker. It is a measure of the leniency of the city’s criteria that Mr. Graff’s application was ultimately denied even though his stand has operated on approximately the same site for seventy years. Though one of the six criteria in the ordinance is longevity, this did not help Mr. Graff.
The lone reference in the ordinance to subsequent review of the Commissioner’s decision is almost laughably inadequate. Under section 10-28-160(c), a vendor whose application is denied has ten days to request a hearing “at which he will be given an opportunity to prove that the determination of the Commissioner was in error.” The ordinance does not define error or specify what proof is required. And the person who reviews the decision by the Commissioner of Public Works is none other than the Commissioner of Public Works! *1066The ordinance merely instructs the Commissioner to issue a permit promptly if he “determines that his previous determination was incorrect.” Chicago, Ill.Mun. Code § 10-28-160(c) (1991).
Defendant’s supplemental brief attempts to save this glaring absence of subsequent review by noting that a dissatisfied applicant may obtain judicial relief in state court by writ of common law certiorari, or in federal court by way of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. While it is in some sense true that a person denied a license is not precluded from filing suit in state or federal court alleging constitutional deprivation, full-bodied judicial review requires more. In FW/ PBS, for example, the Supreme Court found that the city ordinance requiring licenses for sexually oriented businesses did not offer sufficient judicial review. 493 U.S. at 229, 110 S.Ct. at 606. Though the ordinance in FW/PBS is not reprinted in the Supreme Court’s opinion, the plaintiffs in that case also retained a right to file suit in state or federal court—which of course they did—yet this did not satisfy the judicial review requirement. If mere silence on the question of judicial review were sufficient, leaving only the theoretical avenue of redress of claiming a constitutional violation in the courts, then the procedural requirement of Freedman, Southeastern Promotions, FW/PBS and a host of other cases would be redundant or meaningless. The Chicago ordinance does not provide genuine judicial review, much less the prompt and guaranteed judicial review required of a statute that licenses expressive conduct.
The city goes to great lengths in its papers to assure this Court that it has no intention to put its licensing authority to ill use, urging us, in essence, to relax our standards. Defendant contends, for example, that it could not discriminate on the basis of content because permit applications do not contain a list of what publications a particular newsstand sells (defendant’s supplemental brief at 8-9). This is hardly comforting. City officials, were they so inclined, could evacuate their bureaucratic desks for the afternoon, stroll over to a stand and examine for themselves what magazines are sold. Defendant also contends that all newsstands sell all manner of publications, so that there is no danger of content discrimination in the permit process (defendant’s supplemental brief at 9). Defendant offers no proof for the proposition that all newsstands sell exactly the same publications, and we rather doubt its accuracy. Indeed, it is not difficult to imagine a city wielding its power to deny a permit to newsstands selling underground papers sharply critical of municipal officials. Or the city could use its licensing scheme to punish vendors who sell pornographic magazines that are otherwise constitutionally protected. The ordinance contains no minimum or maximum limit on the number of permits issued. Thus, were the Commissioner seeking to punish a stand for selling a particular publication, he would not face the obstacle of having to find a replacement vendor.
Plaintiff, having brought a facial challenge, cites no specific instance in which the city has abused its licensing authority, but a facial challenge requires us to be vigilant in the protection of expressive freedom, and implores us not to assume governmental restraint. As the Supreme Court said in Lakewood:
The city asks us to presume that the mayor will deny a permit application only for reasons related to the health, safety, or welfare of Lakewood citizens, and that additional terms and conditions will be imposed only for similar reasons. This presumes the mayor will act in good faith and adhere to standards absent from the ordinance’s face. But this is the very presumption that the doctrine forbidding unbridled discretion disallows.
486 U.S. at 770, 108 S.Ct. at 2150. The dissent accuses us of being picky, of “tak[ing] a microscope to the ordinance * * of giving the city too little guidance, and of not sufficiently appreciating that Chicago “was searching for a reasonable alternative to either prohibiting newsstands entirely or permitting newsstands at will” (at pp. 1079-80). Such criticism misapprehends the role of this Court, particu*1067larly in the area of the First Amendment. The judiciary’s role is not to act as legislative adviser or to bend backward to accommodate the city’s goals. Where a municipality takes up the power to license an activity that involves speech, the burden is on the city, not the speaker. The dissent puts forth the extraordinary proposition that “[ojnly if the government discriminates on the basis of the content of speech should the ordinance be scrutinized under the First Amendment” (at p. 1074). This would essentially eliminate the doctrine of prior restraints. If courts were compelled to wait until the government discriminated on the basis of content, they would lack the power to review licensing schemes in advance of their application and to require procedural safeguards. This view cannot be correct.
IV.
The district court decision makes much of the city’s contention that its licensing scheme is a content-neutral time, place and manner regulation. This may well be, but it is of no import when an ordinance fails to provide adequate procedural safeguards in a licensing scheme directed at First Amendment-protected activity. Such a licensing program is unconstitutional even if it is a content-neutral time, place and manner restriction. FW/PBS, 493 U.S. at 223, 110 S.Ct. at 603. In that decision, for example, the Supreme Court held that it needn’t reach a Court of Appeals finding that the ordinance at issue was a “content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction aimed at secondary effects arising out of the sexually oriented businesses” because the procedural safeguards built into the licensing scheme were inadequate. Id. Therefore, the district court’s lengthy discussion of the content-neutral and time, place and manner aspects of the Chicago ordinance is also irrelevant, and the dissent’s suggestion that the case should be remanded to allow the city to present its justifications for censorship is unpersuasive. If an ordinance lacks sufficient procedural safeguards, there is no point in pursuing the time, place and manner analysis. It is worth noting, however, that the district court’s discussion of these issues applies the incorrect test.
Mr. Graff’s First Amendment activity takes place on a traditional public forum: the sidewalk. United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 177, 103 S.Ct. 1702, 1707, 75 L.Ed.2d 736 (1983). As the Supreme Court recognized in Hague v. CIO:
Wherever the title of streets and parks may rest, they have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions. Such use of the streets and public places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunities, rights, and liberties of citizens.
307 U.S. 496, 515, 59 S.Ct. 954, 964, 83 L.Ed. 1423 (1939). Speech in such a traditional public forum as a sidewalk is accorded a special status in constitutional jurisprudence. Grace, 461 U.S. at 180, 103 S.Ct. at 1708. In traditional public fora, the government’s power to restrict expressive conduct is extremely circumscribed. The government may only enforce reasonable time, place and manner regulations that are content neutral, narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, and which leave open alternative channels of communication. Perry Educ. Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45, 103 S.Ct. 948, 955, 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983).9
Defendant attempts to draw an analogy between this case and our decision in Lubavitch Chabad House, Inc. v. City of Chicago, 917 F.2d 341 (1990), in which we upheld the refusal of officials to permit erection of a Chanukah menorah alongside Christmas trees placed by the city as seasonal decorations at O'Hare International Airport. As the Supreme Court pointed out in its last term, however, an airport is not a traditional public forum merely be*1068cause the public is freely invited. International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness v. Lee, — U.S. —, —, 112 S.Ct. 2701, 2706, 120 L.Ed.2d 541 (1992).10 Unlike an airport, the sidewalks from which Mr. Graff hawks his newspapers and magazines are longstanding public fora on which expressive activity receives special protection. The opinion below did not apply any special scrutiny to the ordinance because it limits speech in a traditional public forum. In fact, the district court's memorandum opinion and order does not so much as mention the phrase "public forum."
Even if the judge had been correct that the city’s licensing scheme is not a prior restraint, he would still have erred in not applying the test set forth in Perry Education Ass’n. Though he found that the regulation is content neutral, and merely a time, place and manner regulation, he failed to measure either the city’s proposed interests in regulating expressive conduct or the availability of alternative channels of communication. Perry Education Assn., 460 U.S. at 45, 103 S.Ct. at 955. If for no other reason than this, we would be forced to remand.
V.
For the reasons stated above, we hold that the Chicago ordinance violates the First Amendment of the Constitution. Section 10-28-192 of the ordinance is a severance clause intended to rescue the statute should certain portions be found unconstitutional. However, this provision cannot salvage the newsstand ordinance because the statute is doomed by its omissions rather than its excesses. As this case has proceeded, the city has not filed an answer. Because the ordinance is unconstitutional on its face, and that question of law has been fully briefed and argued in this Court, there is no occasion on remand to call for an answer. The dismissal of counts one and two is reversed and the cause is remanded with instructions to enter an injunction prohibiting the city from removing plaintiff’s newsstand and from otherwise enforcing the present ordinance against him.
APPENDIX
Relevant portions of the Chicago municipal ordinance governing newsstands are as follows:
10-28-130. It shall be unlawful for any person to erect, locate, construct or maintain any newspaper stand on the public way or on any other unenclosed property owned or controlled by the City without obtaining a permit therefor from the Commissioner of Public Works as hereinafter provided. * * *
10-28-135(b). The Commissioner of Public Works may from time to time reissue all or a portion of those permits that have been revoked or have expired. * * *
10-28-150. Application for a permit for a newspaper stand or for renewal of such permit * * * shall contain * * * the number of daily publications and other publications that will be sold from the stand * * * and a statement that such permit will be accepted subject to the conditions and provisions thereof. * * *
10-28-160(a). * * * [T]he Commissioner shall deliver a duplicate of the application to the Commissioner of Planning and to the alderman of the ward in which the newspaper stand is or will be located. Upon receipt of such application, the alderman may refer the application to the City Council’s Committee on Transportation and the Public Way for the purpose of conducting public hearings on the proposed permit application. All interested persons, including the applicant, shall be given an opportunity to be heard at such hearings. After conducting such hearings, the Committee may issue a report summarizing the issues that *1069were addressed at the hearings and recommending approval or denial of the application. * * * The Committee’s report on the permit application shall be based solely on the following considerations:
(1) Whether the design, materials and color scheme of the newspaper stand comport with and enhance the quality and character of the streetscape, including nearby development and existing land uses;
(2) whether the newspaper stand complies with this Code;
(3) whether the applicant has previously operated a newspaper stand at that location;
(4) the extent to which services that would be offered by the newspaper stand are already available in the area;
(5) the number of daily publications proposed to be sold from the newspaper stand; and
(6) the size of the stand relative to the number of days the stand will be open and operating.
Any Committee report recommending disapproval of a permit application must state the specific reasons for the recommendation, which reasons shall be consistent with an applicant’s constitutional rights contained in the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. * * *
In acting on all applications filed pursuant to this subsection, the Commissioner of Public Works shall give due consideration to the Committee’s report, if any, and to the recommendation of the Commissioner of Planning, and shall be bound by the same standards as apply to the Committee in approving or denying a permit.
Notwithstanding any other provision to the contrary, any application under this subsection (a) for a permit for a newspaper stand to be located on property on which a designated landmark is situated, or on the public way between the street and the property line of such property, shall be subject to permit review by the Commission on Chicago Historical and Architectural Landmarks. * * *
(c) Any action denying or approving a permit application under subsection (a) of this section shall be made by the Commissioner of Public Works not less than 35 and not more than 65 days after the application is filed with the Commissioner. Any action denying or approving a permit application under subsection (b) shall be made by the Commissioner of Public Works within 10 days after the application is filed with the Commissioner. If the Commissioner denies the application, he shall notify the applicant by mail of the reasons for his decision. Within 10 days after notice of denial of an application is sent, the applicant may request a hearing at which he will be given an opportunity to prove that the determination of the Commissioner was in error. The Commissioner of Public Works (in cooperation with the Commissioner of Planning if the denial was based on his determination) shall schedule a hearing to be held within 30 days after he received the request.
If, after the hearing, the Commissioner of Public Works determines that his previous determination was incorrect, the Commissioner shall promptly issue or renew the permit. * * *
(e) [W]hen two or more otherwise equally qualified applications are pending for new newspaper stands that are to be located in any area of the City in which only one new newspaper stand is permitted, preference shall be given to the application for the newspaper stand offering the largest number of different daily publications. * * * 10-28-165(b). * * * Such permit shall remain valid until May 1st of the year following the year in which it is issued and may be renewed as provided in this Article. * * * 10-28-191. The Commissioner of Public Works shall have the authority to adopt such orders, rules and regulations as he may deem necessary for the proper administration and enforcement of the provisions of this Article. 10-28-192. The provisions of sections 10-28-130 through 10-28-192 are severable. If any section, clause, provision, portion or application of those sections is determined by any court to be invalid for any reason, the validity of the remaining sections, clauses, provisions *1070or portions, and their application to other circumstances, shall not be affected thereby. It is the intention of the City Council that those sections would have been enacted by the City Council regardless of the invalid sections, clauses, provisions, portions or applications. * * *
. Relevant portions of the ordinance are attached as an appendix.
. Plaintiff does not contest dismissal of Mayor Daley.
. Plaintiff had not applied for a permit under the new ordinance at the time he filed his amended complaint. This fact leads defendant to argue that Mr. Graff is precluded from raising an as-applied challenge to the new ordinance. What the city forgets is that Mr. Graff not only attacked the constitutionality of the ordinance in his amended complaint; he also requested injunctive relief. By asking the district court for a preliminary and permanent injunction restraining the city from enforcing its ordinance against him personally, plaintiff raised what amounts to an as-applied challenge. Nor can Mr. Graff be faulted for a failure of persistence in attempting to acquire a permit. He was rebuffed each of the several times he tried to apply. At the same time, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks did not deny Mr. Graffs application for a permit under the new ordinance until August 5, 1992, more than two months after the district court decided this case. This Court is hardly in a position to overturn a district court decision based on facts occurring after the lower court decision was rendered. In any event, it is unnecessary for us to resolve this issue because the ordinance is itself unconstitutional.
We also need not delve into plaintiff s contentions that the newsstand ordinance violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment based on the city’s allegedly favorable treatment of sidewalk cafes and vendors of items such as T-shirts as against newsstand operators.
. The dissent suggests that newsstand operators are not advocates for a point of view and so, presumably, are not deserving of full First Amendment protection. This proposition is empirically questionable, since newsstand operators do choose which publications to carry. Their decisions to sell or not sell pornography, religious literature and political publications are matters of judgment, advocacy and editorial discretion. In any event, there is nothing in First *1062Amendment jurisprudence that modulates the level of protection based on how strongly the speaker identifies with the speech. The dissent’s suggestion that only advocates should receive First Amendment protection would have dire consequences for, among others, publications that purport to report the news objectively.
. The dissent argues that the standards we now apply would condemn the ordinance upheld in Chicago Observer, Inc. v. City of Chicago, 929 F.2d 325 (7th Cir.1991). Not so. In Chicago Observer, the city merely regulated the size of newsracks; it did not exercise licensing power to deny permit applicants the means to conduct business related to the First Amendment. Moreover, the ordinance in Chicago Observer was directed at advertisements plastered on the outside of the boxes. Commercial speech receives lesser protection under the First Amendment. Virginia Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976). An ordinance regulating merely the size of newsracks and the advertisements on their front is not relevant to this discussion. Indeed, if we were to adopt the dissent's expansive view of Chicago Observer, that decision would be at odds with the Supreme Court's decisions in Lakewood and FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 110 S.Ct. 596, 107 L.Ed.2d 603 (1990).
. The dissent takes issue with our reliance on FW/PBS because part of Justice O’Connor’s opinion was joined by only two other justices. However, the dissent would rely on a dissent by Justice White, which was joined only by the Chief Justice. This splicing of justices is ultimately unavailing to the dissent’s position because three other justices concurred in the judgment and criticized Justice O'Connor's position because the procedural safeguards she prescribed were not strong enough! Even if Justice White’s opinion were compelling, which it is not, this Court would not be free to adopt its reasoning. Specifically, Judge Manion criticizes what he calls the “new slant" in Justice O’Con-nor's opinion in FW/PBS that sees judicial review as an independent species of official discretion. Under the dissent’s view, based on Justice White’s dissent, a court would first have to determine whether municipal officials exercised too much discretion before it could reach the question of judicial review. This scheme, however, would render meaningless the requirement of judicial review. Either the court will have already found excessive discretion, in which case there is no need to reach the judicial review question, or the court will not find excessive discretion, in which case it is not permitted to reach the judicial review question. This cannot be what Freedman and its progeny intended.
. The dissent contends that the city has offered several justifications for favoring daily newspapers, and quotes from its brief a statement concerning clutter on the public way. We fail to see, however, why magazines or weekly newspapers should create any more clutter on the public way than dailies.
. Section 10-28-191 gives the Commissioner of Public Works “authority to adopt such orders, rules and regulations as he may deem necessary * * This resembles a provision in Lakewood to which the Supreme Court took exception, which gave Lakewood’s mayor the power to set "such other terms and conditions deemed necessary and reasonable by the Mayor.” Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 769, 108 S.Ct. at 2150. The Chicago ordinance contrasts favorably because the open-ended clause apparently is restricted by the six criteria of section 10-28-160(a). On the other hand, the language is sufficiently vague on this critical point that, should the City Council resurrect this ordinance, a future court would be forced to dwell on the meaning of this open-ended provision.
. The government may also enforce a content-based regulation that is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and which is narrowly drawn to achieve that end.
. The dissent notes correctly that International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness was decided after our decision in Lubavitch Chabad. House, Inc. We are compelled, of course, to read our precedents in light of subsequent Supreme Court opinions. In any event, Lubavitch Chabad House does not address the question of procedural safeguards for licensing speech. The primary holding of the case is that there is no constitutional right to erect structures on public property, a position fully consistent with the Court's decision today.